Oolite Bulletins

Went to see it yesterday. VERY impressed with it! I thought it was a very very good film and I think it's brought Trek back into the mainstream.

My only fault with the story is that it has left a lot of the back story out for Kirk. Now that he's gone straight from academy to Enterprise there's no room for Gary Mitchell, the Farragut and all that other stuff.

Who cares though, when the rest of the film just blew nearly every other star trek film away! I can't bring myself to oust Wrath of Khan from the top spot, but this film slots easily in at number two.

I could go on for hours about it. I won't. You may sigh in relief...

DeepSpace wrote:

I mean come on, look at the Trek films 1-6 they all look far far more advanced than TOS and nobody complained then.

that's because those films all come after TOS (in terms of storyline) so you'd expect technology to be more advanced while STXI is a prequel, IOW it comes BEFORE TOS. which means technology should be less, not more, advanced. yet from what i've seen, that enterprise would look futuristic even to picard, janeway and their crews.

and no, i'm not gonna watch STXI. with very few exceptions (like Lucy McClane), it always sucks when the same roles are played by different actors.

Don't be such a grump! It's a reboot of the franchise, and to be honest the actors do a fine job of making the characters their own whilst maintaining the integrity of the original actors. Come on, Nimoy himself approved Zachary Quinto's performance and Chris Pine even went to the length of writing to Shatner to ask his approval (which he got)!

All the main cast are very good. There's an Uhura/Spock subplot that I don't personally approve of, but it's still not something that would stop me from watching it again and again and again...

and to be fair, they do try and explain why it all looks different. Not sure if I should say - it might be considered a spoiler.

I saw Star Trek last night. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

There are plenty of little touches that give homage to Star Trek's roots. Yet it is a new story. The plot provides an explanation of why it does not conflict with previous television series and movies and exists alongside them.

Every actor left me with positive impressions of how they portrayed their characters.

All in all, it was a wonderful romp.

<Spoilers for those who haven't yet seen>

I'll go with the general thumbs up too.

I thought Zachary was very convincing as Spock. Kirk and Uhura were good too, Sulu was a bit 'different' to how I expected (didn't seem as laid back as the original).

Chekov and Scotty were a bit too 'comic relief' but didn't have much screen time, though the sequence with the 'water cooler' was just silly - water cooling on an anti-matter starship..yeah right.

McCoy was spot on, I enjoyed the way they gave him his nickname.

Thought the baddie was a bit weak though - never really was convinced by him. Romulan ship (supposedly a mining vessel) was a ridiculous design and appeared to have no architectural resemblance to any previously seen Romulan ship.

Nice to see a black hole that was ..er... black. Full points for accuracy!

I liked the interior architecture of the federation ships, a bit more practical and utilitarian - although the bridge looked like Mac Expo 2020.

Story - pretty good. I was a bit disappointed that (yet again) Trek has to resort to time travel to create a plot, but given that it was good. Mining drill was daft though. If you can create a black hole you don't need to drop it into the centre of a planet, just leave it on the surface and let gravity do the rest....

Special effects - awesome as expected, though the space battles were so frenetic that it was difficult to see what the hell was happening. Also the starships seemed to be able to take an umbelievable amount of damage and still stay operational.

Nice homages to the original series throughout for those in the know too which was a nice and subtle touch.

Cheers,

Drew.

drew wrote:

... the sequence with the 'water cooler' was just silly - water cooling on an anti-matter starship..yeah right.

Were they water cooling systems? I thought it was a generic water supply!

Anyway, there may be a need for water cooling. Currently water/liquid cooling systems are still the most efficient method of heat exchange. Enterprise probably has loads of systems that generate heat (like the network of iMacs on the bridge). One main consideration would be that the impulse engines are powered by a nuclear reactor (according to the original series Enterprise blueprints) and they need liquid cooling. Not good for Scotty though, since he is probably going to be quite ill with radiation poisoning for a while...

Selezen wrote:

drew wrote:

... the sequence with the 'water cooler' was just silly - water cooling on an anti-matter starship..yeah right.

Were they water cooling systems? I thought it was a generic water supply!

Anyway, there may be a need for water cooling. Currently water/liquid cooling systems are still the most efficient method of heat exchange. Enterprise probably has loads of systems that generate heat (like the network of iMacs on the bridge). One main consideration would be that the impulse engines are powered by a nuclear reactor (according to the original series Enterprise blueprints) and they need liquid cooling. Not good for Scotty though, since he is probably going to be quite ill with radiation poisoning for a while...

Going to see it tonight - hooray!

Impulse engines were powered by Fusion reactors and always claimed in techno-babblesque to be "clean" (so Scotty should be fine short of direct exposure ala Spock in ST2:TWoK) - and energy transferred around the ship as super efficient magnetically contained plasma flowing through specially designed conduits through-out the ship.

Selezen wrote:

drew wrote:

... the sequence with the 'water cooler' was just silly - water cooling on an anti-matter starship..yeah right.

Were they water cooling systems? I thought it was a generic water supply!

Anyway, there may be a need for water cooling. Currently water/liquid cooling systems are still the most efficient method of heat exchange. Enterprise probably has loads of systems that generate heat (like the network of iMacs on the bridge). One main consideration would be that the impulse engines are powered by a nuclear reactor (according to the original series Enterprise blueprints) and they need liquid cooling. Not good for Scotty though, since he is probably going to be quite ill with radiation poisoning for a while...

I'm sure I saw a sign saying 'coolant' somewhere - might be mistaken! And then there were all the tubes - I kept thinking "This is Charlie and the Chocolate factory..."

If it was a water supply, why the huge impeller to suck stuff around? The ship can't need that much water given the replicator style food dispensors and sonic showers.

Why were the tubes conveniently 'man sized'?

Today spacecraft like the shuttle use liquidfied freon gas and big radiators to get rid of excess heat. Surely by the 23rd century technology would have evolved to a point where that excess heat could actually be used?

It's all very well having the impulse drive powered by fusion reactors, but how exactly? Today any kind of nuclear power is used to generate heat, turn water into steam and turn a generator and thus electricity... I'm assuming that 23rd century tech has a way to extract heat from the reaction and turn it more directly into motive 'impulse' power - whatever that is. If you can convert heat directly into power - why do you need cooling?

Unless the Enterprise is steam powered...

"Ahead full impulse!"
"Aye Captain, stokin' the boilers!"

Geek mode terminated.

Still think it was just done for laughs - which is a bit 'weak' for Trek.

Cheers,

Drew.

drew wrote:

Still think it was just done for laughs - which is a bit 'weak' for Trek.

I think it was done to get him to press the emergency release button, there by alerting the bridge crew to intruders, there by moving the story along at a decent pace. And....it was quite funny.

Well, as a voice alone in the wilderness...

I didn't like it.

No, that's not fair, I did like it, I just didn't love it, and I really, really wanted to love it.

Questions and apologies for spoileresque statements.

Why is the Romulan Mining vessel laid out inside like a screen grab from a 3D version of Mario? All those pointless platforms everywhere!

Delta Vega - close enough to see Vulcan as a huge moon sized astronomical body - Vulcan hot and sandy - Delta Vega - icy and cold!? How? Why? And why have an Fed outpost so close?

Re: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - pipes were labelled "Inert Reactant" - thus definitely implying something to do with power system.

The Enterprise and the Kelvin just felt too roomy inside - great cathedral type spaces.

I thought all the major characters played their parts very well - very much "in character" - Simon Pegg, while very "Scotty" seemed to be purely comic relief.

Nice additional facet to Spock re: Uhura.

Still don't like time travel cop-outs - that's my biggest bug-bear I think - JJ cheated his way out of the source material.

DaddyHoggy wrote:

Why is the Romulan Mining vessel laid out inside like a screen grab from a 3D version of Mario? All those pointless platforms everywhere!

Read the Countdown comic series that acts as a prequel - it explains why the Romulan ship is such a Gigeresque mess.

DaddyHoggy wrote:

Delta Vega - close enough to see Vulcan as a huge moon sized astronomical body - Vulcan hot and sandy - Delta Vega - icy and cold!? How? Why? And why have an Fed outpost so close?

I agree on that one - Delta Vega in the original series pilot was near the galactic rim and nowhere near Vulcan (Epsilon Eridani).

DaddyHoggy wrote:

Still don't like time travel cop-outs - that's my biggest bug-bear I think - JJ cheated his way out of the source material.

I usually think the same, but I think Abrams has been very clever, using the time travel thing to create a whole new universe to hold the rebooted franchise. It allows creative freedom without invalidating the original series material!

SPOILER ALERT: Just thought of something else overnight!

Spock says "a" sun goes super nova By the time he returns with mysterious "red matter" super nova has consumed Romulus - OK, given my vague memories of astrophysics no sun could be massive enough to span interstellar space even when supernova, so the sun which went supernova must have been Romulus's sun. Which means - 1) they would have had loads of warning, they could have evacuated the entire planet/system 2) once you've turned a sun into a black hole there's the small problem of heating and lighting your planet - a very short term fix!!

Also, why an almost 200 yr old Vulcan to fly the ship? (other than plot device/nod to old series)

@Daddyhoggy

Yep - agreed on the Romulan ship - not much evidence of 'form following function' there.

Delta Vega - ashamed I didn't spot the hot planet/cold planet thing - good point!

And as for 'Inert Reactant' - what's that supposed to mean? Something is either inert or it reacts surely?

Cheers,

Drew.

drew wrote:

And as for 'Inert Reactant' - what's that supposed to mean? Something is either inert or it reacts surely?

An oxymoron like that is probably some kind of in-joke amongst the crew, would be my guess...